Rep. Wexler won't be joining Obama's team

Boca legislator plans to seek re-election in 2010

U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler says he isn't joining president-elect Barack Obama's administration and intends to stay in Congress for the foreseeable future.

Wexler's plans have been the subject of speculation since Obama won the presidency in November. Local politicos even have been speculating about who might run to succeed him.

The Boca Raton congressman - who represents south and central Palm Beach County and part of Broward County - was the earliest prominent Florida politician to support Obama's bid for the presidency. He endorsed Obama in early 2007 when almost every other elected Democrat in South Florida was supporting Hillary Clinton.

"I certainly have no immediate plans to do anything other than continue in the job I love, which is a member of Congress representing Broward and Palm Beach counties," Wexler said in an interview Monday after touring a veterans clinic in Sunrise.

Though ruling out "immediate" plans would seem to leave open the door, Wexler said that wasn't his intention. "I didn't mean to be coy by saying the word 'immediate.' I have no plans. I'm not doing anything. They're not doing anything. . . . I am not going to work in the Obama administration. What happens in the future - and I'm not talking about one month or three months - but what happens in the future, I don't know."

He said he plans to concentrate on three areas in Congress: foreign policy, health care and economic recovery. He said those efforts would involve working with some of the same people with whom he worked during the campaign who now will be inside the administration.

Beyond that, Wexler said he plans to seek re-election in 2010.

"My original goal, when I got elected to Congress, was to be the most passionate, energetic congressman I could possibly be and remain happily married. And so far, I'm on target," he said.

Wexler's early endorsement of Obama put him among the new president's earliest supporters in the nation outside the president-elect's home state of Illinois, and Wexler went on to serve as a national surrogate on behalf of Obama to the Jewish community.

And Obama noticed.

"I've got two friends right here who have been with me through thick and thin. They've been holding down the fort in Florida. I want them to come up real quick so I can thank them once again: Congressman Robert Wexler and Broward County Commissioner Stacy Ritter," Obama said at a rally in May.

Anthony Man can be reached at aman@SunSentinel.com or 954-356-4550.

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